The internet was been buzzing for the last two days* with rumours of a Roxette reunion after Per Gessle gave an interview to the BBC, promoting 20 years since ‘The Look’ was released, along with his European tour, and the song he’s contributed to creepy Swedish-kiddy-romantic-vampire-psychological film of the moment Let the Right One In.
I should be miffed he didn’t speak to us here, considering I am surely the internet’s bestest Roxette fan (actually I’m probably not. Lots of people have secretly got huge Roxette collections and one of my friends recently owned up to having all of Per’s solo stuff, too, which means he is way more devoted to the cause than me). Still, I suppose the Beeb is a bit more publicity for him than he’d get over here.
As for the reunion rumours, what Per’s quoted as saying is this:
Yeah, we’ve talked about it. It’s really up to Marie. We did a European tour in 2001, then she got ill in 2002, and ever since she’s been taking it easy.
She’s started doing a few concerts before Christmas as a guest artist in Sweden, which was a big success for her, so slowly but surely she’s coming back to the stage.
I would love to do more Roxette and I would love to do more recordings as well, because she’s a great person and a great singer, but I don’t want to push her at all. It’s really up to her. If she calls me up and tells me I’m ready, I’d say let’s go for it.
Basically, he’s saying he’d like to do it, but Marie doesn’t seem too keen, but maybe it will happen one day – the same thing they’ve been saying since Marie got ill (though there was a little reunion in 2006 for their 20th anniversary). I’d love to see it happen – if the material was more like ‘Wish I Could Fly’ and less like ‘The Centre of the Heart’ anyway – but I’m not holding my breath. Still, any excuse to show a little bit of Roxette, and if twenty years since this song is reason enough for the BBC, it’s surely good enough for me:
*Well it’s made a handful of web sites, anyway.
